Part 2 — HAMLET.

None of Shakspeare’s characters are insignificant. If I had been Garrick or Mrs. Siddons, I should have tried sometimes, as an experiment, the most apparently trifling of his personages. I believe they would give room for striking development, only there is this objection—neither Siddons nor Garrick, nor any other of the great actors could take parts promiscuously from the crowd. They are too unlike each other. They are too essentially different identities to permit of being represented by one. Garrick might take Macbeth in the play—and Scrub in the after-piece, and do them both well; but he could not play equally well with two such opposite characters by Shakspeare. No actor has appeared capable of playing all his principal tragic rôles well. It is sufficient honor to attain to the height of illustrating one or two. Kean, for example, was very great in Lear and Richard. He was fine, by starts, in Othello, but not equally so. He wanted sustained simplicity and calm grandeur. Othello was a hero of nature: he had the quiet self respect of a long successful soldier. Kean did not satisfy me, as a whole, in Othello. I like Forrest, in many respects, better. I saw Forrest play the part at Drury Lane one night far beyond what I had ever seen before; particularly the first half of the play was perfect; the last I thought wanted, although in a slight degree, that mellowing and chastening which time gives to a painting, and will, doubtless, perhaps has given, to this part of that dignified and impressive portraiture. He carried with him a crowded and intellectual audience—and, at certain points, profound and unbreathing silence—the highest applause—indicated the grasp this distinguished tragedian had on the minds of the people who have beheld the character so often and so grandly given—and so often and ably criticised. Cassio’s drunken scene was full of the thrilling strokes of a master.

Of the characters in these plays we may always speak as of historical characters—as if they had lived—just as the poet drew them. Men always do speak of them so. The opinions, even of these Shakspearian men and women, have authority in the senate and the field—at the bar and in the pulpit. Many a statesman—many an editor has struck at his antagonist with a citation, not from Shakspeare, but from his men and women. By a common consent of two centuries, Othello and Macbeth, Lear and Coriolanus, have lived—they have been substantial beings—their real historical individuality has passed into their dramatic being—and they appeal to our minds from the scenes where Shakspeare left them. So with all his vast crowd of people. A young man who has made himself really acquainted with this assemblage, will have formed valuable friends and advisers; and should he select properly the persons whose opinions he means to act on, he will live a happier and a wiser life than he could without them.

I have said there is no insignificant character in Shakspeare; so I may say there is scarcely one which would not make the subject of an interesting volume. As classes of men, scores of volumes might yet be written on the kings, the queens, the generals, the rebels, the usurpers—on the mothers, the children, the self-murderers, the assassins—on the poor and the rich, the innocent and the guilty—on the supernatural characters—on the noblemen and the peasants—on the fools and drunkards—on the spirits—on justices and physicians, landlords and servants—on sea captains, lawyers and executioners—on mobs and fairies—on Spaniards, Italians, English and Frenchmen—on Romans, Jews, shepherds, shepherdesses and wenches, courtiers, pages, etc., etc., etc. Indeed, there is scarcely an end to the various relations in which his characters may be considered; each one may be performed with effect. Nature has made, or will make, some particular mortals gifted with a distinct capacity to represent one of each of them—as Mrs. Siddons was for Lady Macbeth, and Kean for Lear. The greatest actors seem but prophets fitted to illustrate one or two of his creations. Some of them have never yet been represented as they may be. Probably Lady Macbeth, and Queen Catharine, in Henry VIII. will never be better given—as also Richard, Lear, and several others; but I suspect many of the subordinate rôles are yet to be filled.

There really are many indications which bear out the praise of the commentators, that this world was not large enough for his genius. His spirits, magicians, monsters, and ghosts, are evidences of it. Other writers have resorted to these materials before him, but only as a mode of acting on human feelings. It was reserved for Shakspeare to make us as well acquainted with the secret heart of a ghost as of a mortal. Hamlet’s spectre not only frightens and startles us—he touches our feelings. We see into that unearthly mind—that solitary, disembodied being—revisiting the scene of its mortal life, but indicating, fearfully, by its stealthy dim night walks—the solemn march with which it goes slow and stately by—its allusions to things too frightful for human ears—its guilty starting at the crowing of the cock, and its hurrying back to its nameless and awful task—its anguish-stricken bewailings over the earthly state of peace and happiness from which it was so ruthlessly hurled—indicating by all these and many more expressive tokens, the dark and sublime load of woe it bears, and appealing to our sympathy with terrible power. Ulrici may have found, in this scene, grounds for his theory.

The character of the unhappy exile from earth to the secret and impenetrable abode of spirits, is drawn with as much reality as that of Hamlet or the grave digger. There are two or three touches of individuality which invest it with a singular attraction. It is not only a ghost; it is the ghost of a particular individual—of a majestic, noble, benevolent, affectionate king, overwhelmed by a mighty calamity: the victim of the most shameful lewdness—the blackest treachery that ever was seen—and deploring, “in fire,” the “foul crimes” done in his “days of nature.” We are not to presume he had been a peculiarly wicked man, but he was suddenly called to his account before he could prepare himself to die.

What a sublime hint of Christianity is this, and how fraught with a tremendous lesson to all mankind. Death itself is not the misfortune; it is death to an unprepared spirit. That he was

“Sleeping, by a brother’s hand

Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despatched,”

is not so terrible as that he was cut off even in the blossoms of his sins—

“Unhousel’d, disappointed, unaneal’d:

No reckoning made, but sent to my account

With all my imperfections on my head.”

I have always thought this one of the sublimest and most terrible reaches of our author’s genius. All earthly misfortunes, regarded in their temporary consequences are, of course, unworthy to be placed in comparison with the misfortune of the immortal disembodied soul. The wreck of old Lear’s mind, the agonizing fall of Othello from bliss, the banishment and murder of Coriolanus, the stern fate of the sweet Juliet and her tender Romeo—all fall short of the horror of this spectral lamentation, coming up from the central caves of the earth, or the yet more unimaginable caverns of hell itself, and deploring in the “dead waste and middle of the night,” the vast, dire and unnameable wo it suffers from its unreflecting manner of living while yet a mortal tenant of the globe, and when the means of making its reckoning were yet within its power, and had been so unwisely neglected. Had this unhappy creature been a thinking and pious person, the sudden blow would not have found it unprepared. It would not have been wasting the precious hours of age in the blossoms of its sin. It would not have deferred the imperative duty of making its peace with the creator, and of endeavoring, (before the condemnation “to fast in fire”) to purify itself from earthliness—from the enervating and selfish tendencies of luxury and royal power, and from the soils and weaknesses of youthful passions, uncurbed, and the follies—perhaps we may also with justice term them “foul crimes”—which all mortals commit in a greater or less degree.

In these few words is a grave lesson to the men of the present living world. Many of the most prominent characters in history have felt, in time, the importance of the mighty truth which this “poor ghost” had neglected—and, by withdrawing from active life, as old age came on, and devoting themselves to reflection, to self-examination and self-purification, to thoughts of death and communion with their Maker, have endeavored to prepare themselves for the closing scene. Men require this process. We are all heated with the cares and passions of life, and cherish in our breasts flames which ought to be extinguished before we enter the presence of our Maker. Some abandon themselves to such unworthy wishes, to such mean, selfish and ridiculous opinions and determinations, that the years of ordinary old age cannot be too long to enable us to regain our balance, and to recover (or if we have never had it, to acquire) the dignity of a moral being. What a picture is presented to the imagination by the thought of a miser standing before the throne of God. How would a profligate feel, restored, as he will be by death, to a true estimation of himself, on being thrust suddenly before the dread tribunal; or, what would be the sensations of an arrogant, presumptuous man, going through life with no thought but himself and his own greatness, on being, like the ghost of Hamlet, “cut off” even in the blossoms of his sins, no reckoning made, “but sent to his account” with all his imperfections on his head? What would be the feelings of any mere worldly man—one who had been a cruel persecutor and oppressor—who had taken the bread from the widow and orphan?

All men have not sinned equally, but all men have sinned. It is not likely any one has gone through the world without having an opportunity of feeling, with a most bitter humiliation, the innate depravity and woful weakness of human nature, unless sustained by the creating hand. Trusted to themselves the stoutest will faint, the purest will be soiled. The events of life act upon the heart with a kind of chemical power, extracting from it baseness and weakness, as poison may be extracted from flowers. Perhaps this is capable of being turned to good, if read aright. For the heart which has looked in upon itself, with distrust and shame, is wiser and purer than any other: it is stronger also. To come to the feet of the Creator with a true trust in him, is almost impossible, till we have seen the shipwreck of self confidence, and felt that by ourselves we are less than nothing.

After a life, then, of action, and of temptation, of false hopes, ill placed affections, frivolous desires and enjoyments, and perhaps impious and guilty occupations, how happy he who has the wisdom to break away from them himself, before inexorable fate calls him, and who cleanses and prepares his spirit for the great change it is destined to undergo. I will not enter here upon the graver tenets of religion, but surely we may believe that he who sees in time the nature of sin, and disentangles himself from its snares—who spends the latter years of his life in a sincere endeavor to become what he ought to be, and to release his spirit from the world before his body is called away, if he cannot wholly efface the traces of sin, may soften them.

For my part, although not an old man, I begin already to look upon human life more as a spectator than an actor, and to feel myself within the sublime and mysterious attraction of another world. I distrust the effect upon me of the collisions, temptations and pleasures which I may yet have to encounter—and I feel a hesitation even in wishing for wealth or worldly honors. The idea of a hereafter—of the actual visible presence of my Maker—is becoming every day less remote and more familiar to me. It hushes the voice of indignation, and checks the impulse of contempt—which, when I keep my eyes on this world alone, I cannot always master. It teaches me that my mortal part, as far as related to earthly things, is a brief, passing shadow—that the world is but the reflection of one point in the career of the soul—that human vice and folly are but mysteries of nature, and that human passions were given us as our slaves—not our masters. No medicine—no magnetism can have a more striking influence than this thought, upon the physical as well as the moral part of me; and when I enter the chamber where a dead man is lying, I feel all that is bad within me so rebuked, silenced and destroyed—and all that is good so awakened, so pure, sustaining and holy, that I have little enthusiasm to search after the vain phantoms of mere earthly philosophy, or earthly happiness. I see only the form of religion, ever calm, ever young, standing above the wreck of the mortal universe, and pointing to another and a better one.

What a powerful stroke of dramatic art is it then in our great poet to throw this idea, not into the voice of a sage or a preacher, but to announce it to startled generations from the dim faded lips of a suffering spirit.

It has been a custom with many great characters, both of ancient and modern times, to devote the latter part of their lives to this moral preparation. It seems as if a kind Providence had conceived old age on purpose for this process. If we have lived properly, our minds will then have become cultivated in proportion as the body, that great tempter, has been weakened; and we are called upon to retire from the active world just when we are become unfit for it. Yet how many old men do we see clinging to its gilded toys, empty hopes, and frivolous amusements, without a thought of any thing beyond; or, how many a grey head is at this moment working schemes which might better become the imagination of the thoughtless school-boy, or the grovelling nature of the brute. In how many a heart, which should be the altar only for the pure, silent, undying flame of piety, do we see the unholy passions of earth burning beneath a hand which ever feeds with the impurest food their vain fires. How few are there among aged men who have thought of letting loose their hold on earth, of slackening their pursuit after wealth or vain distinctions, of turning their minds to the period (which to-morrow may bring) when all things not connected with their future career shall seem to them like infant toys.

I often think of that poor ghost’s touching lament, and hope that death may not find me thus unprepared. I take a profound lesson from this profoundest of mortal teachers, and learn to go through the earth like a passing traveller, paying but a brief visit of curiosity and instruction to its beautiful wonders, but who does not mean to build, even in the fairest of its bowers, or by the most tempting of its streams—because his home is in another country, to which all that he has and all that he loves is either gone or going.

How deeply Shakspeare—even the laughter-loving, etherial, sunshiny Shakspeare, was impressed with the same thought, you may gather from his works. It is not the night-walking spirit alone who utters to mankind this sublime truth, but the most high climbing and successful of his living personages also proclaim it. Prospero, among others, in a solemn and touching remark, betrays how full he is of the nothingness of mere human life. After having given utterance to that most magnificent of all the sublime breathings of a thoughtful mind—

“And like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind.”

He invites his companions to his cell:

“Where you shall take your rest

For this one night; which (part of it) I’ll waste

With such discourse, as I no doubt, shall make it

Go quick away: the story of my life,

And the particular accidents gone by,

Since I came to this isle: and in the morn

I’ll bring you to your ship, and so to Naples,

Where I have hope to see the nuptial

Of these, our dear belov’d, solemnized;

And thence, retire me to my Milan, where

Every third thought shall be my grave.”

It is true this man has made himself a magician for the purposes of the poem; yet the reflection is that of a Christian turning away from the most splendid paths of this world to prepare himself for the next. Of the Tempest it may be said, in passing, that over it hangs a beautiful mystery which has not, that I am aware of, yet been explained. There is some deeper meaning in the extraordinary contrast of characters, in the delicate and harshly used Ariel—in the brutish and diabolical Caliban,

“Which any print of goodness will not take,

Being capable of all ill;”

and yet, by a mysterious exercise of power, obliged to obey an art sufficiently strong to control his “dam’s god Setebos.” I am so accustomed, in the works of Shakspeare, as in those of nature, to look for meaning where all seems most capricious, that I dwell with a kind of delightful curiosity over the grand and not yet all explained lessons of this fascinating creation. What a delightful amusement for an old age of leisure to relieve its graver moments by a habitual study of Shakspeare!

To return a moment to the spirit of Hamlet. The human traces found in this pale spectre are great heighteners of our interest in it, and of the probabilities of its existence. The return to Elsinore, and to the platform before the castle, in the night, when the sentinels are on guard—its appearance first to the soldiers on the watch—then to Horatio, who has been induced to watch by the report of it—its sudden appearance, and equally abrupt disappearance—giving an idea of capricious impulses and laws not within the reach of mortal conjecture—its seeking out its son as the confidant of the amazing secret, are all ghost-like, and yet show the shadow of mortality. Its dismal, half-breathed, mysterious revelations of what it is undergoing in its new abode, are spectral to the last degree; but there is nothing which elevates it to a higher and nobler place in our commiseration, than the exquisitely tender allusion to the guilty queen. This is the mortal, always majestic, superior, merciful and refined—but now enlightened and subdued by the influences of its new state.

“But, how-so-ever thou pursu’st this act,

Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive

Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven,

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge

To prick and sting her.”

And then the startled, reluctant, yet abrupt and compelled return.

“Fare thee well at once!

The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,

And ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire;

Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.”

Again, in the scene where Hamlet kills Polonius, and reveals to his mother his full knowledge of her crime, the spirit wo-stricken, and bringing with it always the terrible cold breath of the other world—yet still, with the fingerings of human affection, is touched with pity at the terror and suffering of her whom it had once loved:

“But, look! amazement on thy mother sits:

Oh, step between her and her fighting soul;

Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.

Speak to her Hamlet.”